HKB
pass an adverse sentence; but it is true at the same time that he punishes the guilty with the utmost rigour, so that, if you are guilty, I pity you."
There was no help for it; I was obliged to follow the officer. On my way to the palace I said to myself, "Firouzshah has no doubt discovered my correspondence with Zelica; but how can he have learned it?" As we crossed the court-yard of the palace I observed that four gibbets had been erected there. I made a shrewd guess at their destination, and apprehended that this kind of death was the least part of the punishment I had to expect from the wrath of Firouzshah. I raised my eyes to heaven and prayed that at least the princess of Persia might be saved from this. We entered the palace; the officer who had charge of me conducted me into the king's apartment. That prince was there, attended only by his grand vizir and the fakir. The moment I perceived my treacherous friend I saw that I had been betrayed.
"It is you, then," said Firouzshah to me, "who has secret interviews with my favourite. Wretch! you must be bold indeed to dare to trifle with me! Speak, and reply exactly and truly to my questions:--When you came to Candahar, were you not told that I was a severe punisher of criminals?"
I replied that I was informed of it.
"Well," he continued, "since you knew that, why have you committed the greatest of all crimes?"
"Sire," I answered, "may your majesty's days last for ever. You know that love gives courage to the dove: a man possessed by a violent passion fears nothing: I am ready to be a victim to your just wrath; and as to any tortures that may be reserved for me I shall not complain of your severity, provided you grant a pardon to your favourite. Alas! she was living peacefully in your palace before I came here, and would soon have been contented with rendering a great king happy, while gradually forgetting an unfortunate lover whom she never thought to see again. Knowing that I was in this city, her former attachment returned. It was I that separated her from your affection, and your punishment should fall on me alone."
While I was thus speaking, Zelica, who had been sent for by the king's order, entered the apartment, followed by Schapour and Cale-Cairi, and hearing the last words I uttered, ran forward and threw herself at the feet of Firouzshah.
"Great prince!" she exclaimed, "forgive this young man: it is on your guilty slave, who has betrayed you, that your vengeance ought to fall."
"Traitors that you both are!" exclaimed the king "expect no favour either of you: die! both of you. This ungrateful woman only implores my kindness in behalf of the rash man who has offended me; while his sensibilities are only alive to the loss of her whom he loves; both of them thus parading in my very sight their amorous madness; what insolence! Vizir!" he cried, turning to his minister, "let them be led away to execution. Hang them up on gibbets, and after their death, let their carcasses be thrown to the dogs and the vultures."
The officers were leading us away, when I resolved on one more desperate effort to save the princess.
"Stop, sire!" I shouted at the top of my voice, "take care what you do, and do not treat with ignominy the daughter of a king! Let your jealousy even in its fury have respect to the august blood from which she has sprung!"
At these words Firouzshah appeared thunderstruck, and then addressing Zelica, he inquired, "Who then is the prince who is your father?"
The princess looked at me with a proud countenance, and said: